Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Along with “Well done, good and faithful servant" and possibly "dad", no greater, or more sincere, words could be spoken of Athos. May we all follow his beautiful example and be Jesus for everyone we meet.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Breaking News: After years of closed minded mechanics and intolerant engineers labeling my car an "automobile"; the North Beach City council - soon up for re-election - have voted to have my CRV re-listed as a Flying Aquatic Supercar.

While there have been celebrations all night following the voting, I have yet to find anyone who cares to join me on my maiden voyage off Fairhaven Cliffs.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

It was Athos that introduced me to the theology of beauty. When I find a beautiful piece of music (whatever genre) I always think of him. These days, a lot of the time it's rediscovering Thad Jones and Mel Lewis orchestra clips.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

"It broke my heart that Christians were so divided and superficial. I stumbled onto a few things—Thomas Merton and then St. Francis of Assisi. I got into radical gospel living, mystical prayer, contemplative life, and they were all Catholic."John Michael Talbot in the article Mass Appeal in Christianity Today

I'm not sure exactly how, but it's only through Aramis' intervention that I'm back on. (I've tried a few times over the past few years.) I've been . . . oh, never mind.

Hey, guys!

That's not much of a contribution, but since I've nothing of particular value to say, why not yield to tradition and do a Mahler clip? The selection's gotten a lot better since I was last active! (And, no, of course I don't remember how to do embedding.)

Friday, June 17, 2011

Aramis was visited by the energizer bunny today who left a brand new generator (see link) to keep me ticking. It is hard to believe that it has been 11 years since my stroke and subsequent pace maker was installed. I have been blessed in so many ways over the years with many friends and loved ones sharing in life, live and Our Lord.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

ACCORDING TO A RECENT SURVEY, close to fifty percent of Catholics in the United States do not know the Church teaching that the bread and wine used in Holy Communion do not merely symbolize but actually become the body and blood of Christ. What is the cause of such a misconception? Maybe it can be traced back to inadequate catechesis. But I think the problem is deeper than poor theology; I believe it represents a kind of crisis of “humanity.”

One has to wonder if the reason why so many fail to believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist is because they do not have a lived experience of “real presence.” Without an encounter with real presence in our daily lives, the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist becomes an idea, an abstraction. People have no frame of reference for seeing its relevance to their needs. For many, the misconstrual about the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist stems from what is lacking in the flesh and blood of their own lives.

On a human level, what constitutes “real presence”?

Commitment

One element of real presence is commitment. It begins very simply by giving the person in front of me my undivided attention. One of the virtues that defined Blessed John Paul II’s holiness is that when he looked at you, you felt as if you were the only person on the planet. The Eucharist is Christ’s commitment of his never-failing Presence: I am with you always until the end of the world.

In a TV sitcom, a character at a party is talking to a couple, and is clearly bored. But then she glances at the door and exclaims, “Oh, look! Better people!” And she dashes off. Yet, C.S. Lewis reminds us: “It is with awe that we should conduct all our dealings with one another. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”

Our Lord commits himself to us in the Eucharist because, as Pope Benedict XVI tells us, “the root of man’s wretchedness is loneliness – is the fact that my existence is not embraced by a love that makes it necessary.” Showing others charity for charity’s sake, anticipating others’ needs, giving without counting the cost – all this makes others know they are necessary.

Communication

A second key aspect of real presence is communication. One of the simplest but most powerful acts of charity we can perform nowadays is simply to listen to another person. How our isolation worsens when we have no one to talk to, no one to listen to us. It is not a coincidence that receiving the Eucharist at Mass is called “communicating.”

The goal of conversational communication and eucharistic communication is the same: the sharing of self with an other. Pope Benedict XVI says that conversation between people only comes into its own when they are no longer trying to express something, but trying to express themselves; then does dialogue become true communication. And the Catholic philosopher Louis Lavelle wrote that genuine communication takes place only when each “reveals to the other the deep, unknown desire he bears in the secret places of his heart.” This is the essence of the Eucharist.

Communion

And all real presence is marked by communion. What differentiates real presence from just being with others in a crowd is belonging: unity in charity, forgiveness, helping people, self-sacrifice, intimacy. We long for this oneness with others; united with one who loves me, I can face any fear… I am up to any challenge. In the Most Holy Eucharist, wrote John Paul II, “is the pledge of the fulfillment for which each man and woman, even unconsciously, yearns” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia 59). This is why “Holy Communion” is the Eucharist’s other name.

Pope Benedict teaches us that “communion always and inseparably has both a vertical and a horizontal sense: it is communion with God and communion with our brothers and sisters” (Sacramentum Caritatis 76). Living eucharistically means I am devoted to being a friend to others – to loving others’ needs more than my own concerns.

And so, the Holy Father exhorts us: “What the world needs is God’s love; it needs to encounter Christ and to believe in him… Missionary outreach is… an essential part of the Eucharistic form of the Christian life… The wonder we experience at the gift God has made to us in Christ… commits us to becoming witnesses of his love” (Sacramentum Caritatis 84, 85). People will come to believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist the more we offer them a human experience of real presence in our daily interactions with them.

The Magnificat has a meditation today, as they do everyday, that one should comtemplate on for hours allowing the words to touch our hearts, our souls - to melt the ice at the center of our beings...

Yielding To The Holy Spirit

Tears are the humble, created water of my heart that corresponds to the powerful uncreated water of the Spirit’s life in me. Tears are perhaps the most rejuvenating and re-creating water of all, the evidence that I have allowed grace to melt the ice at the center of my being. As Leon Bloy says strikingly, where there are tears, there is the Holy Spirit, because the Spirit of God is always, as at the beginning, “hovering over the waters”. What areas of my life are still rigid, refusing to yield resistance and be shaped by God’s fingers? “Flecte quod est rigidum,” we pray in the Veni, sancte Spiritus. In what parts of my person do I still allow the old inflexible grouch of sin to have his way? Each one of us, according to our state in life, has different strategies for allowing the old Adam and Eve to survive in us. We may have that rascal, the decrepit old self, locked away safely, but surreptitiously we still pass him food through the slot in the dungeon door, do we not?

The Glory of God is always found in movements of love, in communication of life, never in static routine, cramped piety, thoughtless repetition of official acts, conventional observance, external religious acts that could easily become the letter that kills, the continuing tyranny of the old, sinful self. The Spirit, by contrast, is wind, fire, light and water, Glory: the unexpected, the transforming, the self-communicating, the self-outpouring Power that shapes by embracing and not letting go. The way of the disciple is necessarily a way of discipline, because discipleship is the living school in which we learn how to be like Christ by intimate association with Him.

~ Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis~

E. Leiva-Merikakis, now known as Brother Simeon, is a Cistercian monk of Saint Joseph’s Abbey, Spencer, MA. He is the author of Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word, a three volume commentary on Saint Matthew’s Gospel.

Monday, June 06, 2011

After a period of deep discernment, the rector and parishioners of St. Luke’s Episcopal parish in Bladensburg, Maryland have decided to seek entry into the Roman Catholic Church through a new structure approved by Pope Benedict XVI called an ordinariate. Saint Luke’s is the first church in the Washington metropolitan area to take this step.read more here

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Kevin O'Brien invites his viewer-readers to absorb a portion of the dramatization of G. K. Chesterton's play, Manalive, here. How many professors do you wish this might happen to, God bless 'em? Enjoy this nine minute performance by O'Brien and Mark Shea.

A how-to-book on working with the mystery

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